The self-confidence of thiests

Originally posted by twhitehead
I have noticed that whenever a question tto do with religion is raised, there are a number of theists quite ready to give a highly comprehensive answer with extreme confidence. Theists often sound extemely sure of themselves, even when what they are saying disagrees with all the other theists who are saying something different with equal confidence.
In a ...[text shortened]... ent occasions yet sound equally confident both times.

Why are theists so sure of themeselves?

I think a lot of us here have strong opinions , I don't see any major differences on this between theists or atheists.

Originally posted by knightmeister
ToO cannot learn anything , he already knows the truth. He's just accused Christians of the very thing he does himself. He's about as c**k sure as they come.

Funnily enough, when anyone tries to teach you anything about the nature of time or logic, you are exactly the same.

Originally posted by knightmeister
ToO cannot learn anything , he already knows the truth. He's just accused Christians of the very thing he does himself. He's about as c**k sure as they come.

It's not that I "cannot learn anything." It's that there's little reason to believe someone not only illogical and seeming incapable of reason, but a liar. What is it I'm supposed to learn? That God is both omniscient and not omniscient?

Originally posted by knightmeister
It's always "christians this...christians that......" and always about other people and their faults. You talk about overcoming sin and Jesus etc etc but you won't talk about yourself and your own struggle with sin. You don't say how you practice Jesus being your Lord but see fit to focus everything outwardly at others whilst ignoring what's happening ...[text shortened]... rld's Christians have you actually met ? )

You teach what you most need to learn.

I don't have to "back it up with anything from [my] life". The words of Jesus back up my position. You always try to make everything about something other than the matter at hand. You lie and twist things to suit your own purposes. If God is truth, you don't know God.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I think a lot of us here have strong opinions , I don't see any major differences on this between theists or atheists.

I think there is a difference. I tend to admit my lack of knowledge in areas that I do not have good reason to be sure of. I also find that in most areas that I am sure of, most other educated atheists agree with me.

If I was to quote a difficult verse of the Bible - lets say the parable of the sheep and the goats, I will get a number of different opinions. Each theist will be so sure of their opinion that no amount of disussion with other theists will result in a change of opinion. And where does the information come from? Some of the theists will even claim to have had help from the Holy Ghost - even though they disagree with each other about what the message was!

Originally posted by twhitehead
I think there is a difference. I tend to admit my lack of knowledge in areas that I do not have good reason to be sure of. I also find that in most areas that I am sure of, most other educated atheists agree with me.

If I was to quote a difficult verse of the Bible - lets say the parable of the sheep and the goats, I will get a number of different opin ...[text shortened]... help from the Holy Ghost - even though they disagree with each other about what the message was!

you already said that most other educated atheists will agree with you. but you assume that those that don't agree with you are uneducated so insignificant and of those educated that disagree, screw them because you already have the majority. doesn't that mean that atheists disagree on matters too?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
you already said that most other educated atheists will agree with you. but you assume that those that don't agree with you are uneducated so insignificant and of those educated that disagree, screw them because you already have the majority. doesn't that mean that atheists disagree on matters too?

Atheists certainly do disagree on matters. My query in this thread however has to do with the amount of disagreement and the self confidence of those who hold what amounts to a minority opinion of 1.
If you ask something about Evolution, you will get some answers from people who claim to know the answer, and most of them will agree with each other, you will also get some people who are less sure, but still are likely to agree.
If you ask something about the Bible however, you will get a wide variety of opinions from people who all sound absolutely sure that they know exactly what God is thinking and why he is thinking it.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Atheists certainly do disagree on matters. My query in this thread however has to do with the amount of disagreement and the self confidence of those who hold what amounts to a minority opinion of 1.
If you ask something about Evolution, you will get some answers from people who claim to know the answer, and most of them will agree with each other, you w ...[text shortened]... all sound absolutely sure that they know exactly what God is thinking and why he is thinking it.

sure, but evolution is a much more coherent theory than the bible. of course most would agree and most of it because it is well established as the number one show when it comes to the origin of the species. the bible however puts much more emphasis on faith(probably only faith). so it is logical that theists would have more opinions depending on how far they are willing to go with faith.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
sure, but evolution is a much more coherent theory than the bible. of course most would agree and most of it because it is well established as the number one show when it comes to the origin of the species. the bible however puts much more emphasis on faith(probably only faith). so it is logical that theists would have more opinions depending on how far they are willing to go with faith.

But if theists know this then why do they sound so sure?
Also does the differences of opinion imply that faith is not to be relied upon?

Originally posted by twhitehead
But if theists know this then why do they sound so sure?
Also does the differences of opinion imply that faith is not to be relied upon?

of course faith should not be relied upon. no man should shake nitroglycerin in his hand with the faith that he can shake it one more time and it won't blow up.

and i guess the theists sound so sure is that because faith has different effects on people. just as some people can stomach huge amounts of vodka and i feel queasy just looking at it(had an incident involving vodka, nother story) so faith makes some people irrational. i don't argue that, just look at terrorists. this in my opinion doesn't make faith bad, but it is the people's fault. for me faith is like a warm blanket i can carry to keep me warm but that i can put down if asked to perform some task that requires free hands.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Funnily enough, when anyone tries to teach you anything about the nature of time or logic, you are exactly the same.

No , the difference is that I offer an argument and will go where it takes me. You and I may not agree , and you may think my logic flawed but I do at least offer ideas , analogies and thoughts. ToO just repeats himself , there's no way in.

In any case , anyone who puts themself in the position of "teacher" is too darned sure of themselves anyway. I have noticed that many times you have approached my posts as if you assume there's no way you could learn anything yourself.
For example , if you feel that you can teach me about the nature of time then that's a pretty arrogant thing to say , because no-one really grasps it or understands it properly. All I do is ask a lot of questions about time to try and make people think and examine their own assumptions.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I think there is a difference. I tend to admit my lack of knowledge in areas that I do not have good reason to be sure of. I also find that in most areas that I am sure of, most other educated atheists agree with me.

If I was to quote a difficult verse of the Bible - lets say the parable of the sheep and the goats, I will get a number of different opin ...[text shortened]... help from the Holy Ghost - even though they disagree with each other about what the message was!

But maybe your mathematical mindset causes you to see disgreements where there are none . In maths and science there is only one right answer - in spirituality this is not so defined. I have noticed that you have a problem with denominations , whereas many Christians do not. For us it's not a problem because it's only a problem if you think there SHOULD only be one church.

Also , many verses in the Bible have multiple layers and more than one meaning.

So I have a couple theories on this. None of them might be true, and they all might be true, but they're just thoughts:

1) Experience. Knowing God myself certainly provides me with a significant amount more confidence in what I believe than it would if it were all empty doctrine with nothing real to back it up with. However, I don't believe all "Christians" can claim this.
2) Social setting/upbringing. Living in tightknit Christian communities, being brought up with a very explicit definition of truth. Many never challenge the status-quo and think about stuff for themselves, instead just accepting everything pass on to them at face value. Even if what is being passed on is true and just and all that, over time this causes the message to become mixed with the influences of everyone passing it on. It can seriously distort the original.
3) Multiple viewpoints? I'm not sure which instances you're specifically referring to, but I know that sometimes if you're trying to get people to work together, you give one person one clue and someone else another, making it far easier to solve the question if they both put their clues together (specifically referring to your Holy Spirit question there). However, if two Christians have conflicting viewpoints on an issue, I'd imagine it's either because their own influences differ. Theres multiple branches of the church who still don't agree on everything (Catholics being the most out there, but there are still some differences between Anglicans, Baptists, etc.), and some areas are just plain grey areas which don't have black and white answers.
4) We're only human ourselves. This isn't an entire answer, but how can I claim to fully understand a God beyond time? My understanding is limited at best, and so there will be times when we will conflict because one or all of us aren't accurate in our understanding. However, I'm more than prepared to simply try and tackle what seems illogical or stuff I just don't understand, and attempt to gain an understanding of it. We generally sort stuff into two baskets: stuff I have gained understanding of (i.e. I'm confident over the answer to this), and stuff I'm still trying to understand (i.e. I'm confident there is an answer to this, but I don't know what it is yet). Some people don't even like having that second basket at all and try to make quick answers that often don't make sense.

Originally posted by knightmeister
No , the difference is that I offer an argument and will go where it takes me. You and I may not agree , and you may think my logic flawed but I do at least offer ideas , analogies and thoughts. ToO just repeats himself , there's no way in.

In any case , anyone who puts themself in the position of "teacher" is too darned sure of themselves anyway. ...[text shortened]... lot of questions about time to try and make people think and examine their own assumptions.

You and I may not agree

The problem is not that you and I don't agree, but that you and the entire body of theoretical physics don't agree.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
[b]You and I may not agree

The problem is not that you and I don't agree, but that you and the entire body of theoretical physics don't agree.[/b]

And the entire body of theoretical physics is in agreement with itself?